Siegfried Lederer's escape from Auschwitz
Siegfried Lederer's escape from Auschwitz . Siegfried Lederer escaped from Auschwitz on the night of 5 April 1944, wearing an SS uniform provided by Viktor Pestek, a guard at the concentration camp (gate pictured). Pestek opposed the Holocaust because of his Catholic faith and infatuation with Renée Neumann, a Jewish prisoner. Lederer, a former Czechoslovak Army officer and a Jewish member of the Czech resistance, tried unsuccessfully to warn the Jews at Theresienstadt Ghetto about the mass murders at Auschwitz. After he and Pestek returned to Auschwitz in an attempt to rescue Neumann and her mother, Pestek was arrested and later executed. Lederer returned to occupied Czechoslovakia, where he rejoined the resistance movement and attempted to smuggle a report on Auschwitz to the International Committee of the Red Cross in Switzerland. After the war he remained in Czechoslovakia. The story of the escape was retold by Lederer, historian Erich Kulka, and other writers.